


Mistletoe

by followthecreeper (insibbegerest)



Category: Rammstein
Genre: Christmas, Fluff, Humor, Idiots in Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:47:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24256123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insibbegerest/pseuds/followthecreeper
Summary: In which Paul wants to kiss Richard under a mistletoe, Richard panics and they are both absolute disasters.
Relationships: Richard Kruspe/Paul Landers
Comments: 16
Kudos: 61





	Mistletoe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nara_ism](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nara_ism/gifts).



> Yep, I wrote a Christmas fanfic in May, deal with it. This thing is just banter, idiocy and gayness (my usual).  
> Written as a gift for @Nara_ism, I miss you buddy!

1)

"It's just stupid superstition, Paul."

"How can you be so sure? Maybe something terrible will happen if you don't kiss me."

"Like what?"

Paul started listing the probable scenarios. "The studio could burn down, we could get run over by a bus, a giant ape could attack Berlin, our hair could fall off, we could wake up with legs instead of our arms and arms instead of our legs…"

Richard frowned. "How the hell do you come up with these things?"

"Talent. Now come on," said Paul and puckered his lips.

It wasn't that Richard would mind kissing Paul, the problem was that if he did, he would lose. Once they had noticed the mistletoe hanging above their hands, Richard had crossed his arms and announced that he didn't believe in this kind of shit and wasn't going to kiss people because of the location of some random plant.

Another problem was, Richard did believe in this kind of shit a bit, just the tiniest bit, of course not much, but enough that he hadn't walked away from the mistletoe yet. Instead, he had been staring above their heads nervously while proclaiming how he wasn't nervous at all.

"I'm not doing it," he said.

"I don't have any contagious diseases, if that helps," said Paul.

"Maybe I do."

"There's one way to find out."

"Getting checked by a doctor, you mean?"

"Come ooon, just a quick little kiss, Kruspe, what are you afraid of? Save us from the horrifying curse of the mistletoe!"

Richard didn't have time for this, there was music to write and riffs to practice. "Fuck off," he said finally and took a step back.

"Coward," said Paul, sticking out his tongue at him.

2)

"Who the fuck keeps hanging these things around here?!"

"It's the same one as yesterday, Richard," said Paul, amused.

"Ugh." Richard rubbed his forehead. "This is stupid. Christmas is still over a week away and this is just… childish."

"It's a custom, Reesh. And one should respect local customs, I believe," smirked Paul.

"I am not kissing you," Richard stated resolutely, trying to suppress the part of him that was kind of curious how it would go. He wondered if Paul was a good kisser, if he would just peck him on the lips or if it would turn into something more heated… He shook his head, irritated with himself. These kind of thoughts led nowhere.

"You sure?"

"Yes," said Richard, snatched the mistletoe off the chandelier it had been tied to and threw it next to the mixing table.

"Absolute fucking coward," Paul muttered under his breath.

3)

"Stop making excuses, you brought this on yourself."

"What on Earth are you talking about? I'm just having a bad day, that happens even to the best of us," said Richard defensively. Yes he had fucked up the solo five times in a row, yes he had lost his cable, yes he had hit his head while leaving his car and now there was a red bump forming on his forehead and yes he had forgotten his cigarettes at home. So what, shit happens, nobody is perfect even though he himself is pretty close, yadda yadda.

"You're cursed because you didn't kiss me yesterday. Or the day before," said Paul, sounding dead serious.

"Oh shut up."

"Now you will keep fucking up everything until you fix things."

"I'm not kissing you, Landers." He didn't want to. Absolutely didn't want to. Never had even thought about doing it. Nope.

"The mistletoe is right over there, someone must have hung it up again," said Paul, pointing at the ceiling. "Just a few metres away."

"Yeah, a few metres away, that means I don't have to do anything."

Paul chuckled, grabbed Richard's arm, pulled him up from the chair and began dragging him towards the sinister plant.

"What are you doing!" Richard yelled out once he finally managed to shake Paul off.

The mistletoe was now right above their heads.

"I am trying to save you from your terrible curse," Paul replied.

"You and your constant nagging are the terrible curse."

"Come on, you stubborn prick," said Paul, smiling suggestively and pointing at his own lips.

He wouldn't back off, would he? Richard sighed and decided to go for a compromise; he leant in, planted a kiss on Paul's cheek and immediately turned away so that Paul couldn't see the blush creeping up on his face.

"You call that a kiss?" Paul laughed. "Cowaaaard!"

Richard flipped him off.

4)

They were drunk, the six of them. Hammered. Sloshed. Smashed. Wasted. Plastered. Tanked. Pickled. Bibulous. They were all of these things at once and more.

All the songs had been recorded and now they were celebrating in a bar. The gorgeous bartender kept mixing one drink after another and god, the alcohol must have really been clouding Richard's mind because he wasn't even noticing her. She was by all means a beautiful woman, with dark hair, full red lips and the body of a goddess, but he ignored all of her flirting and winking. Why? Well, he and Paul were in the middle of a conversation and it would be impolite of him to just start ogling random women, wouldn't it? That certainly had to be the reason.

"What were you saying, Paul?" Till shouted over the loud pop-punk music.

"I was saying… You know why we had to record that one part a million times? It's because Reeshy-pie over here has been cursed. It's black magic." Paul's voice was higher and more slurred than usual, but for a man after so many drinks, his speech was surprisingly intelligible.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Schneider asked.

Paul's pout was so adorable it certainly had to be a crime in several countries. "We were standing under a mistletoe and he refused to kiss me."

Everyone at the table started laughing except for Richard, who was doing an admirable job holding it back and pretending to be unamused. "Well of course I refused to kiss you, you don't deserve me."

"Ooohhh? What makes me so undeserving?"

"So many things. You're just the worst," Richard continued with feigned seriousness. "Your hair makes no sense. You talk too loud. You don't know how to do your nailpolish properly. You complain all morning about how you need your coffee _now_ , then you make it and let it go cold. You like to sing terrible old German songs and then I can't get them out of my head for hours. You have more freckles on the right side of your face than on the left side. Sometimes your socks don't match. Sometimes you don't wear socks at all."

"That might be true, but let's talk about you now, shall we?" Paul winked at him. "You smell like cigarettes all the time. You buy a new belt every other day. When you open the room, you never close the fucking door behind you. You can't sit normally. You usually put more make-up on your left eye than your right eye. You're unable to keep your hands still."

Richard immediately stopped twiddling his ring and fought off the urge to check his make-up. "You lose your keys ten times a day. You wear scarves and jackets to look fashionable but then you won't shut up about how hot it is. You ate all the biscuits Ollie brought to the studio. You always arrive either thirty minutes early or thirty minutes late and no in-between.

"You always arrive either two hours late or not at all. You've broken more strings than any other guitarist I know. You buy posters with your own face on it. When you laugh in New York, it's so loud I can hear it all the way to Berlin. You never respond to text messages."

"You never answer calls. You pick your guitars based on how they look and not how they sound. You buy books and then you don't read them. Your eyes are a different colour in every photo. You pretend you can speak Russian, but you know only about ten words."

Paul beamed. "See? We're both disasters! We are perfect for each other. Now stop making excuses and kiss me."

Something did not feel quite right. Richard was trying to convince himself it was the fact that he was supposed to kiss his friend, who also happened to be a guy, and not the fact that this was all just a dare and a joke and they were drunk and the others were cheering and laughing and… Fuck, he wasn't uncomfortable about kissing Paul, he was uncomfortable about kissing Paul when Paul obviously didn't _mean_ it.

He wasn't sure if it was the alcohol or simply him being a total fucking idiot, but he turned away and ran, making his way through the crowd to the exit. Because running away from your problems would totally solve everything, wouldn't it?

His playful mood had vanished. Richard was angry, inexplicably angry. He couldn't tell who or what the anger was actually aimed at, but he couldn't shake it off. _Was the idea of them being something more really so hilarious to Paul? To everyone?_ He had felt the same way about many women in his life – some would say too many women – and he had had no issue admitting it and flirting with them, so why was this so different? Why had he spent so long denying to himself that his gaze tended to linger a bit too much on Paul, that his heart soared whenever he managed to make him laugh, that he enjoyed all the little stolen touches more than he should? Why did Paul had to make a big show out of it and act like _haha, kissing Richard would be really funny and ridiculous, everybody look at us and clap?_

He would most likely continue overthinking everything to the point of driving himself into an anxiety attack, had it not been for all the alcohol in his system letting itself known. Richard bent over, painting the pavement with the contents of his stomach.

Well, now he at least had an excuse for leaving the bar in such a rush.

5)

Paul had not brought up the mistletoe again. Richard was torn between gratitude and disappointment; gratitude because Paul wasn't forcing him to fake-kiss him anymore and disappointment because… because Paul wasn't forcing him to fake-kiss him anymore. Listen, Richard was a very emotional person and emotions didn't tend to be overly logical, alright?

Three days had passed. The band had finished recording the tracks, but that did not mean they had stopped seeing each other. There was still mixing and mastering and a lot of other tasks to be done. People liked to believe musicians got paid without doing any proper work; how Richard had wished that had been true.

…no, that would be a lie, he had not. Where would be he beauty in making music if it was without difficulty? A life with no responsibilities and no worries would be a boring one. Richard's life could be described with many adjectives, but certainly not as boring. Or worry-free, for that matter. He smirked as he thought, _and if there is nothing to be concerned about, I will just make something up._ Sometimes he felt like trouble stuck to him like a leech, but truth be told, he often invited it willingly. Like the goddamn Paul thing. A sensible person would come to terms with the realisation that they had feelings for someone who would not return them and get over it. Richard, however, couldn't. He couldn't stop thinking about it, couldn't stop replaying their moments together in his head. He was a romantic at heart and when he liked someone, the rest of the world ceased to exist to him.

In short; he was pining like an idiot and there was nothing to be done.

"Got a new important lady in your life, Richard?" Till asked offhandedly. "You have that look on your face."

Shit, why did Till have to know him so well? "No, not really. I got lost in some memories, that's all."

"Good or bad memories?"

"A bit of both."

Till nodded with a small, sad smile. "Hm, aren't they all like that?"

Paul clapped his hands loudly. Several times. "Hey guys, stop talking like you're ninety years old and there's nothing ahead of you, alright? I thought we came here to discuss our plans for the album and not to found a philosophy club."

"We did? Damn it, I was really looking forward to having a chat about Socrates," said Richard.

Paul smirked, but the spark was missing from his eyes. The other guitarist had been strangely quiet today. Richard could read these signs and was fairly certain he understood what was going on. Paul would go on being talkative and hyperactive and cheerful for weeks, but once in a while his batteries would run out and he became strangely melancholic. It was as though he was immune to negative emotions most of the time, but once they did hit him, they hit him all at once and he turned into a little ball of grumpiness and nervousness for a bit - until he became his usual sunshiney self again, as though nothing had happened.

"Why the long face, Paul?" Ollie asked. The bassist didn't talk much, but he noticed things. Richard could only pray his pathetic little crush had escaped his attention.

Paul made a face. "I don't know, Ollie, why the long legs? Let's get down to business instead of talking about crap, guys."

"I can't believe you're the one shutting us up, but yes, you're right," Flake nodded. "Where do we start?"

…

It had taken seven hours of working and bickering and laughing until they had decided to call it a day. Christmas was coming, so they had decided to set the rest of the work aside until January. Most of them wanted to spend time at home with their families and even those of them who did not care about Christmas were grateful for the break.

Paul and Richard were the last ones hanging around in the studio and packing their stuff. The other boys had already said their goodbyes, wished each other happy holidays, exchanged some hugs and handshakes and got in their cars (or on their bikes, in Flake's and Ollie's case).

Richard cleared his throat. "Um, everything okay, Paul? You seem to be in a sour mood today."

"No shit." Paul sighed. "It's nothing serious, just… one of those days where you wake up and you already know everything is going to suck. I'm tired and irritated and I have no idea why."

"Oh yeah, some days are like that. It will be alright, we have some time off now and you can rest and buy thirty new coffee machines and take pictures of random people making ugly faces."

"Yeah, I think I will do that," Paul nodded and his face softened. "And thanks for caring, Reesh. I know it will get better, but right now I just… ugh. I'm so glad we're finished for today, I have zero motivation to do anything."

It was simple, really; Richard hated seeing Paul sad and loved seeing him happy. Therefore it made sense he would put all his effort into cheering him up, even if he had to do something awfully unwise that he had told himself he would never do. "Sounds like you've been cursed with some bad luck, eh? I know what could help with that." He moved to the other end of the room, right under the mistletoe, and beckoned Paul to come closer.

Paul burst into laughter, but he obeyed and joined Richard in the corner. "I thought I didn't deserve you?"

"I've changed my mind. Now come here." Richard's hand found its place on Paul's neck as he leaned in to plant a kiss on his lips. He had expected it to be short, just a quick brush of mouths between two friends who liked to fool around sometimes, but then he could feel Paul cradling his face and deepening the kiss. He closed his eyes and let himself enjoy the moment he had dreamed of countless times before.

"That's going to be a lot of good luck," Richard breathed out once they finally parted. "I didn't think you actually wanted this, to be honest."

Paul stared at him as though he had just grown a second head. "I have literally asked you several times to kiss me, how else was I supposed to let you know I want you? Should I have printed flyers? Tattooed it all over my face?"

Richard shrugged. He did feel foolish now, hearing Paul say that. "You always made it sound like a joke, I didn't think you were serious."

"Well yes, that's my brilliant tactic of seduction. I make a flirty suggestion and if the other party is interested, they act on it and if they aren't, I play it off as a joke. At least that's how I thought it would work, I forgot to include the fact that you're a dumbass in my planning."

Richard rolled his eyes, but he couldn't stop the corners of his lips from quirking up. "Oh shut up."

"Make me," Paul dared him with a smirk.

And so Richard did.


End file.
